Remembrance
by instar
Summary: 20 years after the Deathly Hallows, someone is remembering a lost loved one from all those years ago. Then the people around them find out. Beware, spoilers for Harry Potter 7: the Deathly Hallows. Updated!
1. Remembrance

A.N: I wrote this after reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so be warned there may be spoilers. This is just a short one-shot but I am tempted to continue as a kind of precursor to what happened. Let me know what you think.

Reviews, as always, welcome, although I do love seeing the hits too. I would like to improve my writing though, so reviews are always better, constructive criticism and not flames please.

Enjoy.

Instar.

**.Remembrance.**

The wind blew across the cemetery, dragging leaves across the hallowed ground as the sun lay low in the sky, an amber glow reflecting off the soaring autumn leaves. He followed her, as he had done every year for the past 10 years, after he had noticed her yearly absence. Stealing behind the trees and around the crumbling ancient chapel, his eyes moving constantly to watch her movements, he eventually settled by the back of the building; hidden from view as she knelt by the headstone, a small posy of snapdragons in her hand in a variety of colours.

He crouched down, so he could get up and move if he needed. Her hood was raised so her face was shrouded in darkness, although he knew exactly the expression on her face. He knew that she had silent tears rolling down her cheek, and that occasionally her breath would catch in her throat. He was aware that the hand holding the posy was ever so slightly trembling, and that she was clutching it just a little too tight. A loose ringlet tumbled over her cheek, and her bottom lip was quivering, scalding hot salty tears falling into the crease of her lips.

She knelt before the headstone, reaching a shaking hand to the cold marble, running her fingers over the engraving. She always told Ron that she was at her parents' house for the day, and she had never discovered reason to believe he knew otherwise. She couldn't do it with someone else there, especially not Ron. She had yet to tell anyone about what had happened.

Still she could feel his lips on hers, on her skin, still she could feel his calloused, and yet still soft hands in her hair, on her skin. She could feel the goose bumps that rose when he was near, when she caught his midnight eyes in her own hazel ones.

Reaching forwards slightly, she laid the posy to rest upon the chilling stone, so different from the warmth he always radiated towards her. It had been 21 years since she had lain in his arms, since she had been with him in any way other than in the last seconds preceding his death. Her heart ached as she leant against the stone, tracing his name, and the epitaph underneath.

"I miss you so much. Every day feels like an effort. I know my family needs me, and that it's been so long, but I never loved anyone like I loved you," she murmured to him, her voice dancing away on the wind but dispersing before it reached the unknown figure behind the chapel. "Rose is doing well; she loves Defence Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic. I can't believe Professor Binns has finally livened up his classes, but I suppose history's got a bit more interesting when they know we were part of it. You're in the textbook you know. The new one. I'm glad. You deserve it after everything you did."

Her chest heaved with the effort it took to breathe with the lump in her throat and the tears burning invisible scars of pain across her cheeks and her nose and lips. It felt like she would never heal.

"Merlin, I know I say this every year, but I wish you never had to do it. You should be here now and I should be with you, not with him. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but you…" she paused a moment, not able to find the words to describe how much more she wanted to be with him. "I thought it would get better, you know? Like a few years would let me move on, really start living properly. But it's not happened, has it? I'm still here, still coming on our anniversary every year," _still hurting like hell_, she thought but didn't voice, even though she knew that if he was listening, he would know.

Hidden in the crevice of the chapel in the approaching dark, he could see her shaking against the headstone; her head resting against the clean marble – charmed he was sure – as her hood fell down, revealing the cascading curls falling over each other. He could hear faint sobs, but nothing that she was saying. He could see the posy resting atop the headstone, the snapdragons nipping at passing leaves. He sighed, rising to his feet and turning as he left, walking away as silently as he could, the cloak he had borrowed concealing him from view. He knew he wasn't good enough, never had been. It hadn't been her not being able to love him enough, only that her heart had already been stolen; something he hadn't known before.

She spent a few hours in the cemetery after he'd left, talking to him, crying, sitting in silence in the progressive darkness. As it was approaching nine o'clock she rose, her hand resting on the top of the headstone, lingering on the chilling marble as she paused before she left. She crouched down again to place her lips against his first name.

"See you next year, dear Severus."


	2. Confessions

A.N: Okay, so I decided to continue it, and here's chapter two. This follows chapter one, but not all the chapters will be working in chronological order, just for reference.

Thanks so much to: boolavogue, Khofey, Fuurma, Patchye, Delilah Housings, Aveon and the anonymous reviewers, as well as Khofey and marloes84 for favouriting the story.

Enjoy chapter 2, reviews as always welcome.

Instar.

**.Remembrance. **

**.Chapter II: Confession.**

Ron was sat on the chair by the dining room table, the lights extinguished and laying in the Deluminator in his jeans pocket, when the front door opened and closed with an almost indiscernable click. He ran his hands through his flaming hair, and sighed, looking down at the table. It was time; whether he liked it or not it was time for him to stand up to her and admit he'd been following.

Hermione frowned in the shadows as her wand refused to light the rooms, and she raised a hand to her hood as Ron clicked the Deluminator underneath the table, lights flying to the lamps, not only in the kitchen but throughout the rest of the downstairs portion of the house. The expression of surprise, plastered onto her downcast eyes, showed Ron quite clearly that she had no idea why he was still sat at the table, waiting for her, and why he wore such a blank expression.

"Ron? What's going on?" A thought suddenly glimmered across her mind; "It's not Rose or Hugo, is it? They're fine?" She started to panic, her breath hastening and her hands beginning to sweat as her heart began to race.

"The kids are fine." Ron stated, deadpan, as he continued to stare at the table. "Hermione," he started, looking up at her for the first time since she had entered the room, "where were you tonight? Really, I mean." Her eyes widened and she tried to talk, her mouth opening and closing blankly for a few seconds. "I know you weren't at your parents' house 'Mione. So where were you?"

"I…" Tears formed in her eyes, and her heart tugged at her as the memories surfaced, fresh in her mind as she gazed at Ron, hoping, wishing and praying that he wouldn't ask her further than this. "I went to the graveyard, the cemetery."

"Which one?" His voice was harsh and stung her, making her wince as she saw the need to know in his eyes.

"The one where… where…" The lump formed in her throat, and she found it hard to breathe as a tear escaped from her eyeswhy was it so hard to say his name? "_He_ is buried," she managed, more tears escaping now as she slightly hiccupped. Ron's eyes hardened as he fixed her in his gaze.

"_Who_ is buried there, Hermione?"

"Ss… Sse…" She took a deep breath, and steadied herself, roughly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, before she answered with a finality that reflected the fact that she knew the masquerade was over, and that everything would come out, whether she wanted it to or not. "Severus is buried there."

Ron stayed quiet for a moment, and this concerned Hermione more than the stone-cold look on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair again, and gestured for her to sit down. She pulled out a chair, and perched on the edge, her cloak still chilled with the autumn breeze.

"Why were you visiting Snape's grave?" Ron's voice was shaking, and she could see the internal fight about whether he wanted to know or not.

Hermione turned her eyes to the floor, and wrapped her arms around herself as Ron's steely gaze continued to bear down on her. He felt restrained as he stopped himself from grabbing her arms and shouting, screaming at her, demanding to know why she was visiting the dread Professor's last resting place. Instead of this, he just fixed his eyes on her, and settled with speaking through gritted teeth, his anger just seething out. He didn't know how he'd taken it this long, why he didn't just confront her the first time, all those years ago. All he knew was that finally, finally he was asking what he had wondered for so long.

She was steadying herself as she prepared herself for the confession that would change her life. Her life was so carefully put together, so meticulously neat and every vestige of her past was so well concealed, even the annual return to her lover's grave.

"Ron, I…" She started, before taking another deep breath, readying herself for the storm that was about to hit and compound itself over and over again. "I just need you to know I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry it's been a secret." Ron nodded almost imperceptibly, and she knew that her apology would not be accepted for a while. "Severus was, is, different to how you thought he was. He's… was, that is, sweet and kind and brave, and gentle," Ron snorted, and not in a laughing way as his eyes clouded.

"And you would know that, how exactly?" He snarled, the restraint he'd been showing dissipating as his worst, nightmarish thoughts appeared to be making a resurgence, this time as reality.

"Ron, don't be angry, this was years ago, before…" She caught his eyes with hers and put the effort into keeping the eye contact. "We were together. From the third year until he killed Professor Dumbledore." The look of disgust on Ron's face reminded her why this had remained her secret for so long.

"Thirteen? You were _Thirteen?_" He shouted, and Hermione knew that that was not the moment to point out that she was fourteen, and nearly fifteen since it was near the end of the year. "What were you doing? Why were you with him? Snape? _Snape?!_"

"I _love _him Ronald!" Her hand flew to her mouth as she realised what she'd said, so easily, so much more easily than she'd thought she would. "I mean… I loved…" Ron's lip curled, and he angrily stood up.

"You loved me! You said you loved _me_, not him! You had my children for Merlin's sake! We are married, and you still visit the grave of your _lover_, who is _not _me according to you." He seethed, just resisting from leaning over his sobbing wife and screaming into her face. He clenched his fists and watched as Hermione wept, tears streaming down her cheeks and her hair tumbling out of the knot at the back of her head.

"I do love you!" She stumbled over the words and he sneered at her, asking whether she really did. "I do! I'm sorry, okay! I should have told you, but I was so afraid you, and Harry would act like this."

"Well, it's a bit late for apologies, about twenty five years too late!" He inhaled deeply, and pulled his wand out of his pocket. Hermione drew back in fear. "I'm getting Harry. You won't be leaving."

As he left he cast a strong protection charm, and Hermione could almost feel the walls closing in on her and her carefully moulded new life falling apart with the protective wards around her heart.


End file.
